Consolarium

October 26th, 2007

Media coverage of the Consolarium’s work

Derek Robertson

Comments: 3 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Be Very Afraid, Dundee City, Nintendo

The Consolarium’s work in using the Nintendo DS in the classroom has been lucky enough to garner a lot of media recognition this week. This really came about as a result of our invitation to Stephen Heppell’s ‘Be Very Afraid’ event and also our invitation frm ELSPA to present our work at the London Games Festival.

First up we have a video clip from BBC Breakfast on Tuesday morning. The focus of the clip was the London Games Festival and in particular the Be Very Afraid event but the background images used were of the boys from St Columba’s playing the game with their Head Teacher, Mrs Andrews, and me hovering in the background grabbing a DS or two to get other people started using it.

We then found out that a computer games based website called Spong had taken great interest in what we did and thery posted an article on their site. This was followed up by a lead piece in today’s TESS. The journalist that I spoke to was very interested in what happened and he even followed it up further than we did by contacting one of the boy’s mums to ask her what she thought about the project. I am pleased to say that Mrs McPherson was delighted with how this experience has helped her son.

Last thing to report in this post is that BBC Education Online have just published an article about the DS project.
There has been a great deal of genuine positive interest about this story and we are really delighted that this story about the possible benefits of games as learning tools has been received in the spirit that it has. We hope to continue sharing many of the other positive stories that are happening with our local authority partners over the coming months.

October 22nd, 2007

What happened at Be Very Afraid?

Derek Robertson

Comments: 8 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Be Very Afraid, Dundee City, Nintendo

What a fantastic day today we have had at Stephen Heppell’s “Be Very Afraid”event at BAFTA in London. After a hectic day travelling we finally managed to get to BAFTA in Piccadily for the pre-event meeting. After that we all headed back to our hotels. The boys from St Columba’s PS in Dundee who came with us to London had never flown before and they had never been to London! The apprehension and excitement in their voices as the plane engines roared for take-off at Dundee airport was heard throughout the plane, and the same happened as we landed at London City! Here is a short video of our time at the event:

Anyway, what an experience today was. Although the Be Very Afraid event was superb and packed with innovative, cutting-edge practice and bright sparky kids I could not help but feel inward glee at the way the boys from Dundee not only conducted themselves but also with how they demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Nintendo DS device and the Dr Kawashima game they used. Their ability to convey the excitement, value and challenge they experienced during the project to such a wide and varied range of interested parties was a joy to behold. They were articulate, confident and accommodating and I’m sure that a great many people who spoke to them and took the oppoertunity to play the game managed to get a little insight in to what a positive experience this project was for them.
They really were a credit to their school and to the Consolarium’s work in trying to put LTS’ games-based-learning initiatives in the educational mix. Very well done to you both boys and to all the children from St Columba’s PS and the other schools involved for all their work and efforts.